China and the Shaping of Indonesia, 1949-1965

CHAPTER 3. Social Dynamism and Economic Progress

Social Dynamism and Economic Progress 79 79 CHAPTER 3 Social Dynamism and Economic Progress China used to be “everybody’s colony, nobody’s responsibility”. Today the situation is totally different; the New China is “nobody’s colony, everybody’s responsibility”. Kwee Kek Beng (1952)1 Peking, Shanghai, Wuhan/Wearing Blue Clothes, People Are Working indefatigably/From Dawn to Afternoon, till Night/Under the Sky/Smokes Emitting from Thousands of Socialist Chimneys/Symbols of the Twentieth Century are Emerging from Here/… Today We Will be Departing/The Future of My Motherland/Is Surfacing from the Imagination. Sitor Situmorang (1961)2 During three weeks of my stay in China, I was constantly reminded of a saying, “Keep your clothing clean and shun away from any forms of impurity.” How could I not? Everything was immaculate, orderly, and pristine. Danubroto (1956)3 1 Kwee Kek Beng, Ke Tiongkok Baru (Jakarta: Kuo, 1952), p. 151. 2 Sitor Situmorang, “Lagu2 Tiongkok Baru”, in his Zaman Baru: Sadjak-Sadjak (Jakarta: Madjalah Zaman Baru, 1961), p. 15. See also “Xin Zhongguo Zige” [Song of the new China], in Xitoer Xidumolang (Sitor Situmorang), Shiji [Selected poems], trans. Chen Xiaru (Beijing: Zuojia Chubanshe, 1963), p. 10. 3 Danubroto [vice mayor of Greater Jakarta], “Tiongkok Laksana Sarang Labah: Setiap Orang Bergerak dan Bekerdja”, Sin Po, 11 July 1956. This essay also appeared in Seng Hwo Pao, 12 July 1956. 80 China and the Shaping of Indonesia, 1949–1965 [Watching the National Day Parade in Peking in 1956] The whole panorama before us inspired awe and fear. There were people everywhere, regimented people who marched in endless procession with disciplined body movements, yet gay, forceful, and excitedly flawless, and seemingly coordinated by remote control. It was an impressive sight to behold but nonetheless a most frightening one. Ganis Harsono (1956)4 As people living in a newly independent country facing the exciting yet daunting task of nation-building, Indonesian intellectuals were naturally attracted by experiences of other new nations. It was within this context that China entered Indonesian discourses on society and economy. This chapter examines Indonesians’ perceptions of social and economic developments in China and their attempts to make sense of these changes. Unlike the contentious nature of narratives about politics, there existed a significant degree of consensus, regardless of the writers’ political persuasions, in descriptions of China’s impressive progress in the socio-economic arena. Interpretations of the causes of this progress, however, were varied and came to be intimately associated with politics. It was at this later phase that this social imagining was defined and shaped by Indonesian intellectuals’ own agendas at home. This chapter focuses on three interrelated narratives on society and economy in the PRC: social harmony and solidarity, the “amazing” economic growth and the people’s commune as the epitome of socio-economic progress. THE PURPOSEFULNESS AND ORDERLINESS OF AN EGALITARIAN SOCIETY A number of keywords emerged, quite consistently, in Indonesian writings about Chinese society: purposefulness, harmony and the unity of the people. They collectively constituted the core of the main narrative on social change, which can be further divided into two sub-narratives, highlighting the favourable first impressions of the mainland as well as of the Chinese people. 4 Ganis Harsono, Recollections of an Indonesian Diplomat in the Sukarno Era (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1977), p. 162. Social Dynamism and Economic Progress 81 “The Border-Crossing Syndrome”: Setting Foot in an Exciting New World Indonesians’ knowledge of Chinese society was often derived from their personal visits; like most visitors to a foreign country, the first impression tended to be powerful and sometimes lasting. As the majority of Indonesians entered the PRC en route from Hong Kong, the physical crossing of borders from the British colony to Shenzhen (or in some cases, to Guangzhou (Canton)) was frequently accompanied by what I call the “bordercrossing syndrome”. This was a combination of excitement, exhilaration and admiration; many regarded the border-crossing as a symbolic and metaphorical step in approaching something fundamentally different from Hong Kong. The account by Sumanang, a member of parliament and head of the 1955 Sumatra People’s Delegation, was typical of reactions to entering China: “My first impression of China is that all the people have a sense of orderliness and discipline, and that they are working happily.”5 Barioen, an educator and writer from Sumatra, reported that “the first impression of arriving in China...